


crossed-out names

by dramaticgasp



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Headcanon, The Nest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-21 06:39:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13735266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaticgasp/pseuds/dramaticgasp
Summary: He reminds himself of the noises: the whispering of sheets being dragged against, the sick rhytmic breaths, the collision of bone and iron, the silence when Andrew's breath sank in a pillow and everybody else stopped breathing altogether. Andrew's glass-shattering laugh.Jean's eyebrows are furrowed as Neil lies sagged on his back and clutches his stomach, cheeks hurting, caught in a grin.





	1. Chapter 1

Can you think of a story where the beginning and the end overlap? Where it's senseless to distinguish between the terms, because the timeline they form is more of a point?  
  


*

  
  
Coldness hits Neil's face and pours into his ears, and the world is reduced to his ice-stinging cheeks and the noise you hear when you dive underwater. Everything static, time stopped. And then his ears are filled with silence.  
  
Water has caught onto his eyelashes and blurred his vision. He reaches for his face to wipe it off but his upper arm and shoulder ignite; sensation spreads like fire; his ribs, his thighs, his forearms. His body only exists where it's lit up. His lungs are out of breath.  
  
A grin cracks his face.  
  
He wasn't a child for long, but when he was, he believed in living multiple lives - he didn't know the word reincarnation, because it was never talked about. He has seen men die. He has seen life pour out of their eyes, somewhere for the blind to see. He thought something horrible must had happened to his father in his past life to make his eyes as unforgivable and hands as sharp.  
  
But all people need is a rewarding sum of money and a reputation that empowers them to get it. Emperors and tsars have toasted to their wealth amongst winegrowers. Even all-powerful gods have hidden on Olympus and accepted offerings of the poor.  
  
 _That's a little harsh, Neil_ , Nicky has said.  
  
A shoe nudges his side, ''Get up.''  
  
Fear is double-faced: when it's locked with its cause, its disease agent, it kicks and it screams and chokes on the toxic air and its veins burn to escape; and when its the only living thing in a room, its bones are uranium and too heavy to lift. It lies motionlessly like the Dead.  
  
He reminds himself of the noises: the whispering of sheets being dragged against, the sick rhythmic breaths, the collision of bone and iron, the silence when Andrew's breath sank in a pillow and everybody else stopped breathing altogether. Andrew's glass-shattering laugh.  
  
Jean's eyebrows are furrowed as Neil lies sagged on his back and clutches his stomach, cheeks hurting, caught in a grin. They are sharing a moment too intimate to share. With his hands, Neil is trying and failing to prevent secrets that are not his to tell from drizzling onto the obliviating tiles.  
  
Jean says again, ''Get up,'' but doesn't wait for Neil to move and haules him up. Neil stumbles as soon as he's on his feet and catches onto Jean's wrists still clenching his jersey. Jean's eyes are unknowable when they meet Neil's.  
  
''You have a death wish,'' Jean says, and it isn't a question.  
  
Neil reminds himself of this: Allison's make-up intact, but streams of tears wetting her shirtfront, Seth's, too large for her frame. Andrew had warned Neil about Luther, but Neil chose to overhear it. _Where's your sense of responsibility?_ Perhaps he owes them. Time rewinds, and he feels the cold splash, again.  
  


*

  
  
This is how the first training in the Nest goes: a black mass of shining helmets and shining sticks contrasts the shining court floor. It's wooden, not black, due to the ERC standardization, but the lines marking it are red. Red like foreseen loss. Red like a death sentence.  
  
Then: two waves of black part like the Red Sea. Ravens form two straight lines, exy sticks held with both hands and heads facing their front like bodies secured with armour. Neil leans on his stick for support; he's left standing at the end of the passage. He is dressed in a black jersey and his face is hidden beneath a helmet; he could look like part of the entity to an outside viewer, to somebody too far to detect a disturbance in a homologous field. It doesn't matter, Neil thinks. It won't matter, because he knows the difference.  
  
A single pair of footsteps is approaching him from the other end – an image of a ruler in a staged ceremony. Helmet caged between his arm and his side, Riko is taking slow steps towards Neil - everything is in slow motion. Neil feels warmness in his cheeks. In his jaw, in his ribs. His power plant of a heart is pumping heat through his body, his hatred is splashing heat behind his eyes.  
  
Jean is a shadow behind Neil and Riko stands in his front.  
  
''Nathaniel,'' Riko says. He waits for the word to fall slowly to the ground like a feather, and then nods. ''Number four. Beginning his journey to The Perfect Court.''  
  
''The Perfect Court,'' Neil repeats. He feels battered and insubstantial enough to say, ''The Foxes will beat you. I'm only telling you this to avoid future emotionally too intense reactions. I don't think you realised.''  
  
Riko's lips turn upwards, slowly, half murderous, half amused, hungry, like homeless hands closing around a piece of gold. Neil doesn't know which is worse.  
  
''You are a problem,'' Riko says and Neil breaths in and hopes the air would freeze the fibers of his muscles and hold him in place. He feels radiation of derision coming off the Ravens and hears Jean's slow intake of breath.  
  
Riko says, ''Disrespect will not be condoned, nor your childish behaviour.'' He takes a step closer and leans forward as if to entrust a secret, ''Consider this a warning.''  
  
''Give me something to respect,'' Neil says. His eyes are fixed on Riko's.  
  
Riko turns and speaks to the Ravens. ''As apparent,'' he clasps his hands behind his back, ''he has a lot to learn. But that's alright, we have time.'' He circles around Neil and stops a breath from his back. Blood leaves Neil's fingers where he's gripping his stick.  
  
''Watch and learn,'' he grips Neil's shoulders. ''The future of exy is before you. They'll help you forget your bad habits.''  
  
Neil watches; each Raven is a multiplication of another, two perfect lines are mirror images. On court, that's all they are. The way court allows him to shake off his name, it allows some to erease everything but. Their brand. They are facing the front, their attention on Riko, although their eyes are not.  
  
Neil feels sick. ''Your freakshow?'' he asks. ''I'm afraid you misunderstand the concept of sports.''  
  
Everything on the court is uniform in its soundlessness; everything, except for Neil's heart; he hears it beating in his chest and blood beating against his neck and temples; the volume and the heat, _the heat_ , are nauseating.  
  
''Oh,'' Riko says. He pushes Neil's back so he stumbles to catch himself. Neil turns to see Riko spread his arms. ''Oh. Ladies and gentlemen. Nathaniel Wesninski will show us what exy ought to look like. Your pride is a little large for somebody whose head has been down ever since he could walk. Right, Junior? Now. Go on. What are you waiting for? Go.''  
  
Neil's knees feel unsteady and he supports some of his weight with his stick to keep them from buckling. He ignores the way his arms burn.  
  
''I can't play defense.''  
  
Riko is still for a breath, for two. Then his ball hits Neil's chest. Neil doesn't let go of his stick, but his knees buckle anyway. He clings to it as the ball slowly rolls away and clings to it when his imploded lungs explode with air. He hears a puff, too loud, dangerously quiet, directly by his ear, ''Do you know what defense is?''  
  
The ball bumps into a Raven's foot and comes to a halt. A hand appears and disappears almost simultaneously, Neil blinks, the ball is gone, the ball is there, Neil blinks, the ball is gone. Him blinking is time hitching.  
  
Riko's voice comes from farther away as he orders, ''Pick it up.''  
  
Neil turns his head and sees Riko pointing a finger to his left. He sees Riko's eyebrows rise and a foot tap twice.  
  
Impatience runs in his father's blood and impatience Neil has cleansed out of his own. The auburn strands in his eyes are a replication of his father's, the straight line of his nose, the light freckles that can be seen in the revealing light of the sun setting - he is his father's son. He would see this, and he would listen to his mother prove it false, his mother, lacquered with resilience. She would whisper into his hair, _the capacity of survival is the capacity of deliberation_ , and she would show it to be true until he had started believing.  
  
Riko only bows before the highest towers of the Moriyama castle who hold Riko's fate in their hands - with the Ravens, he has nothing to lose and all his pride to build.  
  
''How stupid are you? Pick it up.'' Riko's pointing at the floor before a Raven.  
  
A ball is lying by his feet.  
  
Neil picks it up.  
  


*

  
  
The Nest is a junction of the brutality of his bygone days and the ghost embrace of the Foxhole court; the old and the new. He may be a relic, but relics get their worth in the right hands. Forceful body checks and bodies thrown against attic pillars make bones reverberate the same. It's a junction, the old and the new, transmuted into a mash of timelines; the old and the new don't exist in this dimension.  
  
He thinks this is a chapter he'll erease, a file he'll delete, and he'll go on, like he always does. Or he'll use it a fire starter to spark his courage to break down the empire; he knows he'll be dizzy with want to stay.  
  
Two days ago, three, four, Jean walked him to his room, and just before the door hatched, Neil asked where he was going. _I have classes_ , Jean said, flat. _Don't get killed while I'm gone._  
  
And Neil had made a promise, so he fell down on his bed and slept with his eyes open until his body emptied. He got swallowed by the mattress heating. It pulls at him every break between trainings.  
  
He dreams of the narrow streets of Toulouse and of rain-heavy air. Pebbles dig in his knees and his mother whispers, _eyes on the target_. A man, a shadow, gives him a two-finger salute. _Better luck next time_ , Neil replies in Andrew's voice. His gun fires. Neil silently opens his eyes.  
  
It's the middle of the day, but it's not like he could tell by the look of the room. It looks like a residence of a ghost; all surfaces empty and red drawers filled with letters and stamps and used-up pens, forgotten, desiring not to be. All out of sight, hidden from the outside world, and time is meaningless; a switch to control the rotation of the Earth. Neil keeps the light on because he's afraid of forgetting his senses. Fatigue sometimes distorts his perception; light on, he's assured he'd see a person walking up.  
  
The black walls are eternally collapsing inwards, and Neil is left knocked down on his foreign bed. It's the middle of the day, because he knows how his body feels after the court lights are shut off.  
  


*

  
  
''It's pathetic,'' Jean says tonelessly, ''a team would keep their numbers at a minimum despite the fact they're unable to keep up with standards. I suppose nobody wants to get recruited by them.''  
  
Jean pulls Neil's cigarette out of his fingers and crushes it against a table before Neil lights it.  
  
Too much time has passed, but nevertheless Neil bits out, '' _You_ are pathetic''. Jean only spares him a sideways glance.  
  


*

  
  
He thinks about the feel of a key pressed into his leg. This is what a key is: a weight down for a pile of sheets gusted around by the wind. This is what a key is in the Nest: a crutch to keep you walking. But his body is parched like a forgotten orchid, covered with cobwebs and dust.  
  
Neil is slumped with his back against a wall. He lets his head roll to one side and his eyelids fall half-closed.  
  
''I can't feel my legs,'' he says.  
  
''Think around your self-pity for once,'' Jean snaps. ''Your attitude doesn't fit in the Nest.''  
  
Neil is at eye-level with Jean's long fingers, chalky and misshaped, one weighed down with an ivory black ring. He knows all about spacial restrictions; he knows to use the right explosives to raze them down.  
  
He says, ''What can he do? I'm useless if I can't play.''  
  
''You unknowing child. Don't say things you might regret.''  
  
Neil watches Jean's stony expression, his unyielding glare. ''Do you hear yourself?'' When Jean only crosses his arms in response, he huffs, ''I can't believe you. Were you always this bigoted or did he brainwash you?''  
  
Jean's eyes twinkle. ''Where is your survival instinct?'' he growls. His eyes dart around.  
  
Since he has arrived, Jean has been quiet; not like those whose opinions are made of silence, too quiet to voice them out. Soundless. He doesn't hum or make noises of agreement. Keep fireflies in a jar, they'll glow, and then they'll die.  
  
Neil opens his mouth to reply, but Jean grabs the front of his jersey and pulls him up. Neil stumbles over his feet and clasps his hands around Jean's to pry his fingers apart. He bends backwards with his back to the wall, but Jean's stone-firm grasp is stronger. He's dragged to a nearby bathroom. Two Ravens glance up and then go back to scrolling through their phones. The heavy door swings shut behind them.  
  
''What are you doing?'' Neil strides towards the door, but Jean blocks his path. Neil backs away.  
  
Black marble is slick with cold and elegance. Indifferent and indestructible, a frozen frame of space-time. No windows, not a door of a maintenance storage; a rabbit cage.  
  
''You are sabotaging the agreement,'' Jean accuses. His eyes are sharp and arms folded.  
  
Neil imitates Jean's posure and crosses his arms. ''Why would I? I know what would happen if I did. I came here and I'm playing. If anything, you should've clarified your time arrangement beforehand.''  
  
Jean's eyes search him and then he shakes his head. ''Less harm would be done to both of us if you would have signed already. How long can you carry on your play?''  
  
''What?'' Neil's expression must spell out that he heard because Jean doesn't answer. ''I signed with Palmetto State.''  
  
Neil wonderes if Jean has ever regretted staying after Kevin ran. He said he didn't have a choice; that he was a debt being repayed. But neither did Neil. He didn't have a choice, but he has decided anyway. And even if that means dying at the end of the semester he has at least sipped the taste of life; he is sacrificing a lifetime of shallow breathing for a year of living. Jean does nothing.  
  
''I should've known you're too ignorant to know what you've agreed to.'' Jean's voice is dry. ''This will only escalate. You should know better.''  
  
Neil swallows. He starts turning, slowly, and takes two steps back before he lashes out to get past Jean. Jean pushes at his chest.  
  
''Why don't you run?'' Neil growls. He pushes back.  
  
Jean's glare is spilling; who believes in _it's your life_ nowadays? You can't pull the trigger if you're not holding the firearm. He says, ''You can't be this stupid. You know it's not that simple.''  
  
Neil thinks of how light a train ticket feels, written off by a fake name.  
  
''Maybe it is,'' he says.  
  
Jean swallows. ''I couldn't just vanish now. We're not talking about this.''  
  
''Obviously,'' Neil says, ''but before the New Year. Leave when I leave. Run like Kevin did. Run _to_ Kevin. You're a Class I player, they couldn't afford to eliminate you – too much media would get involved.''  
  
''Yes,'' Jean said, ''they could. I'm not Kevin.'' He interrupts Neil before he even opens his mouth. ''I will make court,'' he says; a fact. ''Kevin is not my backup plan.''  
  
''He's your emergency exit,'' Neil says.  
  
He thinks of how he'd trace the wood pattern of a Millport's changing room bench with his eyes closed, then wake up before daylight could show if he'd picture them right. He thinks of how he'd put a hoodie over his back to keep out the chill of a wall; the heating was switched off during the night. He'd hide behind switched-off lights, or he'd say, _I've forgotten something_ , and another hour of sleep would be lost. Then: Wymack passed him a pen and Neil closed his fingers around the key to Wymack's apartment. Accidents and miracles happen alike. They are unbelievable and yet believed in.  
  
''Do you ever think before you speak?'' Jean's face is scattered with indignation. ''I have no future in playing for an uncoordinated team. The Foxes are an insult to themselves.''  
  
''I think you're just gutless. You'd rather put up with this than do anything about it.''  
  
''Shut up,'' Jean's voice radiates heat, like it always does in a warning Neil ignores. He's had it worse. ''You don't know what you're talking about. Shut up before you hurt yourself.''  
  
''Before _I_ hurt myself?''  
  
Jean is like that, he thinks. He wipes the blood off the dagger he was stabbed with against his shirt and lays it shining in the hands of the stabber.  
  
 _It's always forward, isn't it?_ asked a truck driver with a sigh as he adjusted the sun-shield. Neil had hidden under a skullcap and a map in hands, remade in a way that made hostel staff think, _youth has grabby hands to feel their way around the world_. He had stood on a parking lot of a gas station by the Interstate 75 when he replied to a _where to?_ with a _where are you headed?_ And the driver said, _stopping in Dayton next. Tell me where to drop you off. It's always forward, isn't it? Till the road is standing._  
  
And Neil swallowed down his grief and nodded.  
  
Neil couldn't help if Jean has dug his heels in the mud – because it has anchored him from drifting and because it was easier than swimming against the current.  
  
''Gutless,'' Neil repeats.  
  
Jean snatches Neil's hand and slams it on the sink desk. Neil reaches up to free his hand but Jean catches it and holds it in place when Neil pulls until both their fingers are white. Neil's body is forced to face the mirror and then he sees his reflection and he can't divert his eyes; the electric blue isn't his.  
  
The blue is his.  
  
The blue isn't his.  
  
Static electricity spark jumps between him and the person in the mirror. They are linked by the voltage of a lightning.  
  
''Enough,'' Jean says. ''See this? This is your future,'' he shakes Neil's arm. ''Do you understand?''  
  
Neil is a repaint. He is covered in layer over a layer, so thick he can sometimes forget whose blood flows beneath. He can pretend. He can pretend.  
  
''No. This is my past,'' Neil says. His hand is prickling and crawling and tingling. Jean doesn't blink. Does he ever?  
  
''Do you understand, Nathaniel?'' Jean asks.  
  
He hisses, ''Neil.''  
  
Jean twists his hand and the strain is pulling at the tendons of his elbow. It doesn't hurt much, but Neil senses a catastrophe. He senses descruction.  
  
''I understand,'' he says through gritted teeth.  
  


*

  
  
''Moron,'' Jean says, ''how are you still alive?'' He has seen the white of Neil's skin across his abdomen and the straight lines snaking across his thighs; he knows of the Buthcer's relation to the Moriyamas. ''You have been here for five days, haven't you learnt anything?''  
  
''Heard, disregarded, '' Neil shakes his hand in between them, maintaining eye contact. ''I have an opinion or two, unlike you.''  
  
Neil has seen the scars on Jean. They were photocopies of each other.  
  
Straight cuts on his back cover older, faded zigzagging lines. Neil is quite an expert. He has seen the proof that Jean's spirit has been replaced by a raven.  
  
 _Where is your survival instinct?_  
  
He has spent his whole life surviving; when his mother cradeled his head as he lay on his back and wheezed, she said, _it's okay, we made it_ , and it was, because he felt his heartbeat under his mother's palm. And then there was the Foxhole Court. There was the opportunity to live his make-believe life as a make-believe person. He was tired. He wanted to be something real, for something, for someone. He _wanted_. He still planned to run - he has a nuzzle to his temple and he would flee just before it fired.  
  
And then there were the Foxes. Nicky's hair ruffling and the way his eyes flickered when Neil said something with tightness in his throat, Matt's bruised knuckles and a safisfied smile after he had fought for Neil, Dan winking at him when Matt looked over his schedule, Renee's _how are you_ 's. Andrew. His eyes locked with Neil's as he called Neil's new phone, his eyes half-lidded with disinterest as Neil's voice shook. He said, _you're staying here_ , and Neil only heard the truth. They knew Neil was a lie in worn-out clothes, but they wanted to believe him anyway. How they've started coming together and how far they have gotten. He couldn't run from that.  
  
He signed his survival off with the contract made with Palmetto State.  
  


*

  
  
''You can't outrun a dept. You should know,'' Jean spreads his fingers on the heated floor where he's sitting alongside Neil.  
  
''I don't owe anything to anyone,'' Neil says.  
  
He doesn't tell Jean that death blooms in his chest and that it will choke him by the end of the semester. He doesn't tell him that he's drilling a hole in a wall of the castle; he's not sure Jean'd leave if he had a chance. He doesn't care, he tells himself. He can't care. Half a deck is in his hands and he needs to save the aces.  
  


*

  
  
Jean lets go of Neil's arm and Neil drapes himself over an empty sofa in the lounge room. In front of him, a chess set is placed on a chair, dragged between two sofas and used as a table.  
  
''What's this?'' asks the Raven behind the chair. He looks first at Neil, then Jean, then Neil again. Neil shrugs.  
  
The Raven looks over his shoulder where a few are waiting at the bar. Neil starts swaying to the beat of the music.  
  
Jean runs a hand through his hair and looks at Neil like he has an answer. Maybe Jean told him something earlier, Neil can't quite recall. Time blurs reality like dragging a hand over a foggy window in inverse.  
  
The Raven points at Neil with his head, ''Can he even play?''  
  
And Neil tells him, ''No.''  
  
No, he didn't get involved in Saturday chess duals; no, he hasn't constructed a game of Nibbles in an extracurricular Introduction to Qbasic. No. He was not that kid. But, for the first time in Millport, yes, he did learn how to disable an alarm system. You work with what you've got. You give and you take, and sometimes you take more than you have to give.  
  
''The fuck, Moreau,'' the Raven says, ''get him out of my sight. What's he doing here?''  
  
''Not anything by choice,'' Neil offers.  
  
The Raven examines him from head down. ''You priviledged child.'' His voice is gravelly with something as bitter as repulsion and as muddy as envy.  
  
''You're all insane,'' Neil mutters.  
  
''Tyler,'' Jean pleads. ''Tyler. Just. Teach him. Okay? Or make him do something else, I don't care. Only an hour.''  
  
The Raven drags a hand down his chin and looks over his shoulder once more, then sets his glare on Jean. ''You owe me.''  
  
Jean says, 'Later,'' and is gone.  
  
Neil starts learning chess. The Raven scowls in disgust when Neil empties his glass. His memory of later is a little blurry.  
  


*

  
  
Pain is not substantial, but somehow he's swimming in it.  
  
 _What is Paris like?_ a girl with neon nails once asked him. _Romantic_ , he lied. He had never been to Paris. He didn't understand romance.  
  
''Neil, '' he hears, or thinks he hears.  
  
This is what he does understand: firm fingers on the pulsepoint of his neck. The gravitational pull of the court lights. Orbiting around them gives the comfort of knowing he isn't floating alone in cold empty space; he isn't weightless. Simple things.  
  


*

  
  
He discovers that when alcohol hits the Ravens' systems, they replace chess with monopoly.  
  
He is burried in his grave of blankets, and the white ceiling light is an everlasting buzz. The light is reflecting off the black bed frame. His duffel bag is lying open-mouthed between the two beds, his clothing thrown half in. Even privacy decays, particle by particle. He doesn't trust Kevin with his collection of secrets, stuffed in a journal, folded, torn out of newspapers; not because he is Kevin, but because Neil is an obsession-ridden son of a wreckage. It might hold a price tag he can't pay.  
  
He is a repaint, but Andrew said _you're not going anywhere_. Behind Andrew's shield, Riko doesn't have the power to scrape it away.  
  
 _Where is your survival instinct?_  
  
This is his way of surviving. This is keeping a promise he has made to Andrew with only one of them knowing. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He says, in French, ''Maybe I've got things to do.''

Jean was nine and restless in his seat on Christmas eve, his legs swinging under the seat as he watched his mother reset the misaligned cutlery. Both family and strangers rang their doorbell, and he heard his grandfather sigh at his mother, _again, Annie? Work – or whatever this is, I don't want to know tonight –you can't leave it for a single second?_ Bodies seated and glasses with slender legs filled with Pinot Noir, Jean spilled his drink and watched the orange stain spread like a flood over the floral-white tablecloth and reach the Venetian embroidered table cover, the one his mother saved for impersonal dinners and making an impression.  
  
He was nine, and he knew his family wasn't a holidays poster; it wasn't hard, really, he was given clues all over: the smiles limited to the curve of lips, the red on his mother's nails unchipped, the hefty jewellery, the table cover.  
  
His mother disappeared in the kitchen and a lady with fingers clothed in gold passed him her napkin. _You should always pour drinks decisively_ , she said. _This way you won't spill them. And if you do spill them, at least you spill them decisively_.  
  
Jean was nine, and he knew she wasn't only talking about drinks.  
  
After a month in the Nest, a girl from the neighbouring room, older than him, asked, _is it worth it?_ He remembers thinking, _yes, fucking priceless_ ; he remembers Riko's face halt with indecision, when he was just a boy playing king in a throne too big, when hesitation on his face was still a thing. Every morning, Jean woke up to a war. Jean's ribs may have hurt afterwards, but the way Riko's jaw was set when he left made Jean sure of who had won, no matter Riko's pretense. Riko put on an act until it turned to belief, and Jean doesn't know at which point he started believing it too.  
  


*

Jean opens the door to Riko's room, and an alarm clock comes flying at him and clashes with his forearm at his attempt to dodge. When he finds his breath, he looks at Nathaniel, sitting calmly in his bed, and then at the broken fragments on the floor.

''It broke,'' Nathaniel says.

''You are lucky it's me,'' Jean tells him. ''What were you hoping to achieve? You are seriously pushing your luck. Your neck could be next.'' He kicks at the flakes of glass. ''I'm not cleaning that up.''

''You don't have that much to say to him, do you?''

''Get out,'' Jean orders. ''I'll be in the common room.''

He's sick of cleaning others' messes.

*

When he comes to get Nathaniel the next time, he knocks. The only answer he gets is the quiet of nonexisting footsteps. He exhales and shifts his weight, and gives an impatient string of taps. The door opens abruptly, and Riko is clutching the door frame.

''What?'' He takes in Jean's form with narrowed eyes, and Jean feels the weight of it. He swallows.

''Isn't Nathaniel here?''

''No,'' Riko says and glances behind Jean and around the hall as if looking for Nathaniel. His irritation turns to amusement in the corners of his eyes when he sees Jean's expression. ''Oh no. Is the dog carrying its own leash? He is not going to like the consequences. Or he doesn't care, apparently.''

Sometimes it's hard to believe the universe is indifferent.

''He's on the stadium,'' Jean says and hopes his voice doesn't sound as gravelly as it feels in his throat.

He bows his head, minimalistically, and turns. The court is empty, like he knew it would be, and the changing rooms as well, as he knew they would be. The last thing he needed is a conundrum in his responsibility. Like it was never enough to bear his own decisions. He sits on a couch in the common room and fishes his phone out of his bag, but the words are too easy to skid over. His mind runs one track; you never stop dreading fire.

The fire escape door opens and Nathaniel steps through the narrow opening. He closes it carefully and his eyes are cast low as he starts walking across the room. He spots Jean and their eyes meet. Nathaniel freezes and his eyes are wide and unguarded, and a breath later, he turns and continues walking.

Jean bolts up and catches his arm, ''Where were you?''

Nathaniel's face is shifting as he's searching for an answer to give. Jean wouldn't expect honesty from a liar, though.

''Look,'' he says. ''How about I mind my own business and you mind yours? Nobody will know. You don't want to watch over me anyway.''

''I told you I'd get you for drills,'' Jean says, on edge; he has learnt not to cut corners. He has learnt from the exposure to car crashes.

''And I told you I wasn't going. I already spend half the time on the court.''

Anger flashes in the back of his head. Their performance summed up to the most pitiful, and he was sick of losing. He saw other Ravens strain to fill the open place Jean was slowly leaving behind. He was a realist; Nathaniel has some catching up to do. Sometimes you need to be down to Earth. Or sometimes you happen to be standing above a rabbit hole that leads to Hell, and there's a long way down.

''Did you go out?'' he bits out.

''No,'' Nathaniel says.

Jean searches his face for a lie, for a truth, and feels his heartbeat in his temples. Nathaniel stares back and arches his eyebrows.

Nathaniel closes the distance between them and says, voice low, ''They won't know, okay?'' Fingers grab a handful of Jean's shirt near his shoulder and pull him towards the fire escape door.

''Nathaniel,'' he hisses, but follows; the air in his chest is flammable and for once he isn't sure who's holding the match. He peeks around the room; it's almost empty and nobody is paying attention.

He holds his palm against the door to soften the sound of it closing. They're swallowed in dark. A chill runs down his arms at a change of temperature. He blinks several times, but Nathaniel releases his grip on Jean's shirt and starts ascending before Jean's eyes adjust. Thudding of footsteps is soaked up by the stone of the staircase. Jean straightens his shirt, and follows; because he feels a spark, a charge, a _something_. His fingers slide over the smooth surface of the unused handrail, the color on metal unpeeled and unscratched. His muscles begin to ache.

Jean almost bumps into Nathaniel's back when he stops. They've reached another door. Nathaniel crouches down and puts something, a hairpin, in the lock.

''We can't go out,'' Jean says over the clattering. His voice is steady, but he feels dizzy.

Nathaniel doesn't respond and works with the lock, and then pushes the door open. He steps out of the dark and Jean is transfixed. When he turned fourteen, he decided to make a getaway - and he spent his birthday, and the next four days in the dark, a wrist in metal locked to a batten of a bed. Dark gave him plenty of space to think about it. _We shouldn't go out._

The wind pricks the skin of Jean's face as he steps out on the net of metal bars. He watches his breath materialize and disappear; city lights don't sleep at night. They are standing on a horizontal platform. He steps closer to the edge, from where the stairway leads to the ground. He can imagine how long a coin would be dropping and how inaudible the impact would be.

A body slams into him and his feet come off and he topples over and his heart stops and his arms flail. He catches onto the handrails. All his muscles are awake and he notices that a hand twisted in the back of his shirt is keeping his weight from toppling over. A second later, he's pulled backwards and his back meets Nathaniel's body.

''Wake up,'' Nathaniel's voice is sharp and Jean feels it resonating in his chest, and then Nathaniel pushes him aside. Jean's muscles shake and he collapses against the fence. He clenches his fingers around metal bars and lets the cold freeze him to the platform as his heart restarts.

His breathing is shallow, too fast, and he lets himself feel how breathing expends his unbroken ribs and how cold the metal is on his unbroken shoulder blades.

He should have seen it coming. He stood guard and could see Nathaniel's eyes flare; maybe it was too personal to him to let Jean leave unsigned.

He springs up and the world is tilting, but his fist catches Nathaniel's jaw.

''You sick fucker,'' Jean says. His fingers are trembling. Nathaniel did grow up with knives and his brain was left a litter of loose ends, but Jean has some height on him. He has forgotten what fighting feels like, but his fists remember. Some things you remember, and some things remember you.

''I wouldn't push you down,'' Nathaniel straightens and touches the hit spot that was sore from before. ''But you do care about your miserable life. I wasn't sure. Now do what you want.''

Jean's fists clench. Who _the fuck_ is Nathaniel to speak of miserable?

''What the fuck is wrong with you?'' Jean asks through gritted teeth.

''Make a list,'' Nathaniel replies and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket. This time Jean doesn't stop him. They're standing above the smoke detectors.

Jean shakes his head and walks to the farthest spot on the platform; he can't slow down his heart. Nathaniel huffs.

Nathaniel leans on the railing with his elbows and looks straight ahead when he says, ''I'll kill him. After we beat him in the finals, I'll kill him.''

His voice is even and eyes alive and stubborn, and he's so much of a Fox Jean would think his insides are orange if he hadn't seen him bleed.

Jean takes in the image of the city he has seen countless times; the library dead at night, roads illuminated, sidewalks scarce with dark figures. Two of them whoop and laugh loudly enough to be heard up there, and they start running.

''He'd kill you first,'' Jean says.

He thought about it once. In fact, he used to think about it so much it has plastered over his body, built into the tissue across his chest, leaving a scatter of fossilized thoughts. If a wish is not important enough to be fulfilled, it can be preserved by carving it someplace it will remain.

Killing is like telling your dreams; only fun when you're the one doing it.

*

Jean is sitting on a bench outside of the showers room.

Nathaniel walks out with a towel around his neck and Jean says, ''You couldn't hurry up, could you?''

Nathaniel turns to him and says in French, ''What for? It's not like you'll run out of hot water.''

A few Ravens are standing at the lockers and Thomas Randal turns with raised eyebrows. Nathaniel blatantly ignores him. Jean's breath hitches.

He says, in French, ''Maybe I've got things to do.''

He doesn't look as Randal and Eads exchange a look. Fire is bustling on his tongue and in his fingers. He could burn something.

*

He brought Nathaniel to Riko's room, and he straightaway climbed in the bed. He hasn't even changed.

''Nathaniel,'' Jean calls.  
  
Nathaniel, curled in on himself under carnation red covers, says, voice husky, ''Neil.''

And the covers are bleeding off him and he is bleeding out an emotion Jean can't name, but he recognizes it as it seeps through his own skin and fills his insides. It fits.

He feels like a bottle under pressure, and it's been so long; he's afraid of exploding, because he knows how big the mess is, how many cuts the shards leave.

Nathaniel is unmoving and Jean walks out.

*

He remembers thinking, _is it worth it?_ when he counted the stitches on his side, angry red and impossible to lie on. He was thinking it the whole morning, when his moving was bungling with sleeplessness.

He has learnt some words are as meaningless as they are hard to voice out; he has heard his _please_ not being heard; but defeat has its own mind with its own language.

*

Nathaniel doesn't speak French with him anymore.

Nathaniel is a ball on the sleek court floor, eyes shut and head hidden between raised shoulders. The only sound on the court is the echo of a door slamming shut behind Riko; the sound is gone, but an echo can live outside its body.

''Come on,'' he says, voice cold. Nathaniel covers his ears. Jean looks around, then again at him, and exhales. ''Dinner is being served.'' No response.

They couldn't even fucking shower; they can't go to the canteen, not like that.

He puts his hands under Nathaniel's arms and pulls him up. He holds onto his arms the whole way to Jean's room; he could swear Nathaniel doesn't even see where they are going. He sits him on his bed and opens a drawer where he keeps protein bars.

He hates cleaning others' messes. Nathaniel is not the only one with new ball-shaped bruises, now invisible, but somebody needs to see the bigger picture; somebody must see a puddle on the floor and think, _somebody will step in that_ , and mop it up.

And this: he knows how much time you lose trying to pull yourself up.

He grabs a bar and turns to see Nathaniel balled up, again, on the edge of his bed; his arms are clutching his knees to his chest.

He crouches down and tries to peek at Nathaniel's face. ''Neil,'' he calls.

Neil. Neil. Neil. If you took a black and white snapshot, they'd be the same shade of grey, him and Jean. And yet, Neil has hand-picked his name and decorated it with dark contact lenses, and he's clutching it to his chest like his father clutched lottery tickets to his. A side of an insurance company truck parked by their college read _you are the creator of your destiny_ ; like this, Neil created his out of nothing. It's like he chose a color and sprayed it all over everything, over himself, so that nobody looking at him could doubt it. And Jean - what color is something that has faded to its bones? How can you tell what it's like?

This is what he used to be like: he felt victorious when he blindly told apart different brands of chocolate. He collected seashells on his shelf; with every hunt on the shore, the pile of books on the floor grew taller. He was afraid of the dark of his room, but never the dark under the stars. They couldn't be seen from their balcony because of light pollution, but outside of it, he counted them by drawing a line for every ten stars because he didn't know that many numbers. He wondered where water came from.

Growing up, he wanted to be a sailor. Then, exy was planted in his limbs and it grew to his heart. He would've chosen exy. But his choice lost its color as well; until it wasn't a choice at all.

He was asked, _does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?_ and they didn't even lie; they were too oblivious to see the truth. They roll down their window blinds at night and sleep through the clanging of overturned waste bins under their apartments, in the dusk of their streets and smoke-hidden dead ends. _Unbelievable_ , they say when they run their eyes over new headlines of their local newspaper, _where has humanity gone?_ Definitely not through the basements of their blocks, and definitely not while they were sleeping.

Neil Josten is a replacement for a crossed-out name and a composition of forged documents. Is that how a person is made? Can it be that easy? Knowing Neil's past, Jean assumes he never had much space for wanting anything; perhaps wanting isn't learnt, perhaps it's hardwired. But what if the wires have been cut?

*

Edgar Allan wins every year, and it's deserved, every time. He bleeds for it dry, every time, and for a short, fleeting moment, it feel's like it's worthwhile.

*

They sit alone in the dining hall. It's quiet except for Neil's fork clinking against his plate. He is half draped across the table as he chews slowly. Jean's head feels empty from the absence of sound. Not that it's unusual – his head has grown to be a hollow space.

Jean told Neil, _you should have run _. He told him again. He would lie if he said he didn't understand Kevin, but it didn't make the betrayal anything less than what it was. Kevin hides behind a psychotic grin and somehow the midget body makes do with covering Kevin's. He knows Neil is simple-minded, and yet he doesn't get him.__

''Why Andrew?'' Jean asks and lines up Neil's knife with the edges of his tray. Neil looks up and stops chewing, then winces when he swallows.

''He's a Fox,'' he says. Like it's the simplest truth. Like it's encoded in the air; like it's a commandment. Like it means anything where he comes from.

Growing up, Jean wanted to be a sailor.

He loved weekends with his grandfather, who smelled like tobacco smoke and always had a full bowl of figs. At home, Jean never ate vegetables; he only liked the cherry tomatoes growing on his grandfather's windowsill. Jean wore his sailor beret. He ate breakfast with one foot in the freshness of the morning sea and the other burried in sand. He planted himself in sand and refused to leave.

His grandfather taught him how to tie sailor knots. Swaying of a boat never made him sick. At night, he lay on his back, and he swayed, and the skin of his arms was sticking to the white wood paint because of the salt, and he swayed.

On a summer's night, he was woken up by his mother's silver voice, too loud. She was pacing in the ground floor hall with a phone to her ear.

_He's not in your custody. No, no, that's exactly why. You don't get to decide._

Jean was perched at the top of the staircase, his hands clutching the poles of the rail. His mother glanced behind her shoulder and their eyes met. No galaxy in hers, no bubbling water. Jean knew eyes were never just eyes. And then she turned.

_Oh my god, would you quit with your morals? Nobody fucking wants a lesson from you. We either fucking like it or fucking not, there's no fucking choice._

He didn't understand, but later his father held his hand as he was climbing in the car. He had never ridden shotgun before.

His grandfather appeared hurrying down the sidewalk, trying to catch his breath, but not stopping.

_Annie! I'll call the police! Give him to me! I'll call the police!_

He strode for the front door, but his mother stood in his way with spread arms; a front line. He tried to get around her, and she moved along. He grabbed her shoulders and tried to shake her away, push her away, but she stood unyielding, and he had used up all ammunition and was left powerless and trembling, and pushing, and trying, and trying, and doing his damnedest, but, there's always a but, she was stronger. She was larger than her lean body. People suck in power like tornados when they're at the bottom and desperate to crawl out.

_Leave. Leave! You can't, but I can. Maxim, take the suitcase. Take it now, for god's sake!_

From the beginning of mankind, it has been attempted over and over to find the definition of love; it has been described in poetry and love letters, it has burned the air with rose scented candles on a date night. Jean didn't understand the fuss - he knew what love meant. Love is watching somebody leave from your doorstep.

And through the tinted window of his father's car he watched his grandfather sag on the stairs of their apartment block and watch them drive away.

And now Jean is just a Moreau. Number 3, starting backliner.

*

Airplanes land, airplanes take off, and Jean's soles are glued to the sun-painted sidewalk.

His knuckles were white around the steering wheel, ignition key unturned as he looked ahead and told Neil, _you don't strike me as a success story_. Neil licked his lips and stayed quiet; he wouldn't say, _neither do you_ ; he was the color of a lie, and this was too much of a truth.

He doesn't know. He doesn't even feel angry anymore. It can't be possible to be both angry and void. Anger has turned out to drain him like a sponge; anger has drained him until he has sagged on his bed, on the bleachers, in the middle of the court. A marionette slumps to the floor when its strings are not held.

Or maybe time has washed the word _anger_ of its meaning, and it's only a shell of a concept. A stamp of an emotion. Maybe he has thrown it in a black corner of his black room, or under the black covers of his black bed, and maybe it's so dark he can't find it anymore. Far from eyes, far from heart.

Airplanes land, airplanes take off.

The day Neil climbed in his car, Kevin texted him a mistyped _don't let him break_. He knows Kevin; he knows his fingers were moved with vodka.

When Neil lands, will he call the Foxes? Had they known before? Will he look at his scarring chest and feel regret? Jean supposed not; regret is an obtrusive thing for a survivor. _Do what you want_ , Neil said.

The sun is livening up Jean's skin, livening it up enough that he feels more than greyscale. The sky is blue and full of its emptiness. A bird becomes a silhouette as it flies across it.

He doesn't know. He closes his eyes. He breathes in and smells wet pavement. Inside him, hope and despair fuse into one.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jean is a walking balad, amirite
> 
> here's my portrait of him: http://runningwithhellhounds.tumblr.com/post/171462738269

**Author's Note:**

> do tell me what u think, pal, please, it fuels me


End file.
